Lemon chicken with lemon zest stuffing

recipe

Lemon chicken with lemon zest stuffing

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For vegetarians, this wholemeal stuffing is delicious used as a filling for vegetables such as large flat mushrooms, halved peppers or halved onions with the centres taken out

Ingredients

Stuffing mixture:
350g 2-day old stale wholemeal bread, cut into approx 4cm chunks
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
2 teaspoons dried thyme
zest and juice of two halved lemons (reserve remaining four half lemon 'shells' for chicken below)
150ml stock
150ml white wine
150g pine nuts
The chicken:
1 good quality free-range chicken, about 1.5kg
the lemon skin halves left from stuffing ingredients, above
1 onion, peeled and halved

Serves: 4

Directions

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Make the stuffing. Make the breadcrumbs in a food processor, putting in only as much as the machine can handle at any one time. Put the breadcrumbs in a large bowl.
Fry the onions and garlic for minutes until golden. Add the onions and garlic, thyme, zest and lemon juice, stock, white wine and pine nuts to the breadcrumbs. Mix until all the ingredients are well distributed.
Press down into an oven-proof deep serving dish ready for the oven. Alternatively, form into stuffing balls (about m across) and place on a greased baking dish. Alternatively, you could stuff the chicken, but this draws all the juices into the stuffing which means less juices available for making gravy and also stuffing the bird increases the risk that the chicken is not cooked through.
Preheat the oven to . Untie the chicken if it is trussed, to allow more even cooking. Place the chicken breast down in a non-stick roasting pan. Place the lemon skin halves and onion inside the cavity.
Pour over the white wine. Roast for of an hour, then turn breast-side up and continue to roast for a further hour or until cooked through. Roasting breast side down makes sure that the breast remains moist.
At the same time as turning the chicken right-side up put the heat-proof serving dish of stuffing, or stuffing balls, into the oven to cook - to hour for the dish of stuffing or - minutes for the stuffing balls.